Archive for April, 2014

Do the right thing: this supermarket tells customers that all prices indicated include the consumption tax

A quick survey by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communiciations has revealed that the average price of goods and services, excluding “fresh produce,” since the consumption tax hike went into effect April 1 has increased 2.7 percent, which sounds about right since the hike itself was 3 percent. When the consumer price index is announced next month, the ministry projects that it will be 3 percent higher than it was a year ago, so everything is going as planned.

Of course, that’s the word from on high. Here in the real world, meaning in the stores where we all shop, the situation isn’t that clear-cut.

Some consumers will notice that prices have gone up much more than what they would perceive as 3 percent, while some prices have actually gone down, and many prices have stayed the same.

Asahi Shimbun recently reported that more and more university students are trying to save money even before they graduate and get a job. The article conjectures that young people are anxious about the future and uncertain about their job prospects so they think they have to be financially prepared.

One 19-year-old Keio University sophomore, who commutes to school from his parents’ home in Tokyo, managed to save ¥1.8 million over the course of a year. He works part-time 3 or 4 days a week in an office, sometimes until midnight, and receives ¥250,000 a month, which is actually quite good for part-time work at that age. He saves half his pay, and the rest goes to his ¥1 million a year tuition, which he pays himself. He spends about ¥30,000 a month on food, ¥10,000 on “music activities” (he’s in a band), ¥10,000 on clothing (“I buy cheap clothes”) and “only” ¥10,000 a month for his phone (because he uses Line). His sole major outside expense was a snowboarding excursion last winter that cost him ¥100,000.

Stuck in the middle: Australia cheese competing in the dairy case with New Zealand and Switzerland

Though its participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership seems to be dead in the water for the time being, last week Japan signed an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Australia that could revive Japan’s TPP hopes, but before we get to who lost and who won in the Australian deal, let’s talk about cheese.

Personally, we were looking forward to some sort or tariff reduction on Aussie cheese, not because we prefer Aussie cheese over other kinds, but because all so-called natural cheese — meaning not processed — is expensive in Japan owing to the dairy farmers lobby and their demand for high tariffs on imported milk products.

Japan is close to an EPA with the European Union, but the cheese tariff will likely remain. The Australian EPA only addresses natural cheese that is exported to Japan for purposes of being blended with other ingredients to make processed cheese. The tariff on such cheeses will be reduced from 40 to 0 percent over time, but the tariff on natural cheese that is sold to the public in stores will remain at 29.8 percent, so no cheap cheddar right away.

Preemptive stride: If you do have metabolic syndrome you can guess what the doctor will tell you to do

Though there’s a minority opinion to the contrary, conventional wisdom says that regular health checkups are the only way to prevent the development of major illnesses, so, logically, they should also help reduce healthcare costs in the long run. This is the concept behind tokutei kenko kensa, or “special health checkups,” that were started six years ago by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. The main target is metabolic syndrome, the inevitable gain in fat that accompanies midddle age and which, unchecked, is thought to be the gateway to many so-called lifestyle diseases, like diabetes.

The idea is that local governments would provide checkups to insured residents between the ages of 40 and 74 with national insurance, which, in principle, doesn’t cover regular general health checkups since Japan’s public health system is designed to treat existing problems. If the special checkups uncover unhealthy situations, then the individuals are advised with regard to better diets or exercise regimens, or even pharmaceutical assistance, so as to head off costly treatment down the road, like, for instance, dialysis, which can cost on average ¥5 million a year, most of which ends up being paid for by the government, both local and central.